If you’re not registered for Summer of Lace – - but you were for Spring (or if you’re a contributing author here who chooses not to compete), you can still vote!

PLEASE VOTE!!  We need 7 [...]]]>

All registered members can now go back to the original poll post and vote. Sorry for the delay.

If you’re not registered for Summer of Lace – - but you were for Spring (or if you’re a contributing author here who chooses not to compete), you can still vote!

PLEASE VOTE!!  We need 7 more to make the “quorum”!!!

Here we are.

The moment of truth….

We have Three Judged Categories …. and Three Winners.

The first Category — Knitting on the Road.

Our winner may not have gone far on the road, but it went on the road a LOT.   For her Sister-in-law’s scarf .. on the road, at the beach, [...]]]>

Here we are.

The moment of truth….

We have Three Judged Categories …. and Three Winners.

The first Category — Knitting on the Road.

Our winner may not have gone far on the road, but it went on the road a LOT.   For her Sister-in-law’s scarf .. on the road, at the beach, at the soccer game:

MAYA will be receiving

a delicious shawl kit from blindpurls!

blindpurls has donated a lovely kit … from a lace of the month group

KnitsbyTeri has donated a copy of Barbara Abbey’s Knitting Lace! (An awesome book for lace knitters).  The rest of you might want to buy your own … because this copy is going to the winner of

Lace on Display, for glorious lace posed on a piece of amazing farm equipment….

Swallowtail in the Wind

LostCity Denise

And finally, for Lace Partnership, our Winner is  Evenstar

knit in amazing silk by knitsbyteri.

Amusingly enough, she will be recieving a   1000 yd skein of Lost City Knits, Oak Barn Merino in the Pucker  Up  colorway.

from

This is a Lattice Lace pattern, simple and not in the way of all the colors.

It’s around 620 yds of baby lace.  I think they’ll like it.

[...]]]> Finished up on a prayer shawl for a friend.  It’s hand-dyed tensel, lace weight.  It’s from my stash and I didn’t keep the ball wrapper.   My Bad!!!  I think it was 1200 yards and I used a good 1000 of it!!  The best thing is, It’s Not a PI!!!!!  LOL!!!

Carla

I did not, alas, take the grand champion ribbon.  But everything I entered got a ribbon: the brown and gray shawl in the first picture, the light blue socks and green bolero in [...]]]> I competed in the local county fair.  I think I did pretty well, if I must say so myself.

I did not, alas, take the grand champion ribbon.  But everything I entered got a ribbon: the brown and gray shawl in the first picture, the light blue socks and green bolero in the second, and the green/white bag in the third picture.

I lucked out and got to meet the lady who won the grand champion ribbon, she was checking the results the same time I was.  I didn’t get her name, but the winning socks where the “falling leaves” lace pattern.

So, if you haven’t missed it yet, go compete in the county fair.  It’s great bragging rights.

Today, I’ll tell you about a lovely prize that sligo won! Her post about Miryam

won the runner up prize for Lace Partnership! Her prize?  two skeins of Soft Touch Ultra Merino yarn from

Buffy and Don at Shelridge Farms will [...]]]> Yesterday, I told you about a lovely prize donated by sligo.

Today, I’ll tell you about a lovely prize that sligo won! Her post about Miryam

won the runner up prize for Lace Partnership! Her prize?  two skeins of Soft Touch Ultra Merino yarn from

Buffy and Don at Shelridge Farms will send whatever color she chooses.

And that pretty much sums up the runners up prizes. (Well, except for the Viewers’ Choice bit, but we have to finish the voting first).

So, the Winner of the Yardage Competition.

Our winner managed to knit 7200 yards of yarn into lace.  In three months.  I think perhaps she does nothing else.

And so, I challenge her to knit more large lace items, but doubling up on the prizes she’s already won.  Yes, that’s right, I have two more skeins of that lovely Misti Alpaca lace from

And I’m going to be sending them to thislittlepiggyknits!  (7200 yards!  yowsa)!

Tomorrow …. Judged Category Winners…

  It’s 36 inches across and took 3.5 skeins of [...]]]> I’m still hooked on the PI!!!  I think I may have to have electroshock therapy or something to get this center off my mind!!!  I can’t seem to go another direction!!!  I did this as a baby blanket for a friend of my DH’s.

  It’s 36 inches across and took 3.5 skeins of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. 

Then there’s the sweater…… oh, yes, same center!!!

 Modeled by a great friend at our Concho Valley Knitting Guild meeting last night!!

  And this is turned the other way…. love this sweater!!  Wish I had made a big enough one for me!!!!!!

Carla

time for another Raffle Prize!

the wonderful folks at Jimmy Beans Wool sent us five skeins of Misti Alpaca Lace to award as prizes.

thislittlepiggyknits wins one for a Medium Lace raffle prize.

And … time for a consolation prize.

A consolation prize, you ask?  Why a consolation prize? and where [...]]]> Whee…

time for another Raffle Prize!

the wonderful folks at Jimmy Beans Wool sent us five skeins of Misti Alpaca Lace to award as prizes.

thislittlepiggyknits wins one for a Medium Lace raffle prize.

And … time for a consolation prize.

A consolation prize, you ask?  Why a consolation prize? and where ever did THAT come from?

It came from a  mistake that we made way back when we were fixing that poll for the Viewers’ Choice award.  You know the one… the one I keep urging all of you to register your votes on so that I can award the yummy prize that we’ve allocated to the Viewers’ Choice winner.

You see, even though the post showing  these three amazing shawls had been nominated for Viewers’ Choice….

And even though I had tried to given them three separate entries.

Playing with Pi

Still Playing with Pi

AndPlaying with Pi some more

The poll that you all got to vote on did not include these shawls!!  (I’m still rather stunned by that — I know I put those links into the poll, and yet, they vanished!)

Since we daren’t re-start the poll again, the mods and I agreed that the knitter who posted those three lovelies should have a consolation prize for losing the chance to win the prize for which she’d been nominated.

And so, I’m sending one of the skeins of Misti Alpaca Lace (donated by

to thislittlepiggyknits, who knit all three of those lovely shawls.  (And yes, that does mean that she gets two skeins).

This means that I have only one Raffle Prize left to award:

The one for Supporting our Sponsors.  I think that our prize donor has come up with THE BEST prize for this ever.

Sligo, of Sligo’s Muse has donated a $25.00 Gift Certificate — from which ever of our sponsors the winner chooses! So our Support our Sponsors prize supports our sponsors!  Is that cool or what!

Now, the person who posted the most entries in that category was… sligo herself.  The person with the next highest post count in that category was, well.. ShadowDancer.. (and that does not count any post that announced prizes).

You see, I spend a fair amount of time trying really hard to make lace, and not doing terribly well at it. And now, it turns out I knit some, without even [...]]]> Forgive the over-excitement, but I did it! I made some lace! I counted to er, more than two, correctly, many times over!

You see, I spend a fair amount of time trying really hard to make lace, and not doing terribly well at it. And now, it turns out I knit some, without even thinking about it. Yes, really. Clearly I have been suffering from a spot of selective blindness recently. You see, despite a prominent category on this blog, and numerous posts about items in that category, and the fact that the pattern I was using actually employed the very word ‘Lace’ (yeah, that should indeed have been a clue), I was so hung up on knitting ‘socks’, I entirely failed to spot that they were also, quite evidently, ‘lace’.

To be fair, this is partly because the socks were knit for a contest – a minor sock war, or perhaps more of a sock skirmish, which has broken out in an obscure corner of Ravelry – and I was entirely focussed on finishing them, as fast and as well as I could, desperate to send them off before a pair arrived for me. So, I carefully considered the choice of yarn (some new 2-ply Midnight Sheep merino I hadn’t tested yet), and the color of the yarn (specifically dyed to please the recipient), and was then entirely absorbed with getting them to look neat, and to be the right size.

Well, the world is small, and the recipient of the socks happened to be, not only a friend of this blog, but someone who has knit, beautifully, for me in the past. So I tried especially hard to knit nice socks. I even did proper tinking, when required, no expense spared. However, I did not – perhaps mercifully – have a moment to panic about the L-word. And it was not until I happened to mention my general inability to knit lace, and she replied: “I have socks that say otherwise” that the penny, finally, slowly, and ever so happily dropped.

Look: lace! Lace socks.

So what made this possible? I’ve been wondering ever since. And I think, if one leaves aside the hypothesis that I can in fact knit lace as long as I don’t know I’m doing it, like a cartoon cat who can walk in midair so long as he doesn’t look down, there are a couple of factors.

• One, the rows were short. 66 stitches short. I could tink one or two without getting too distraught (and inclined to press on with my eyes closed to impending disaster).
• Two, the repeats were short. 11 stitches, by eight rows. This, after about a sock and a half, I can actually memorize.
• Three, I can actually count to 11. Genuinely. There is no scenario in my domestic life where I can count uninterrupted, and accurately, to (say) 279. However many stitch markers I use. (Note: my best stitch-markers for this job are ex- a child’s hair barette, so the kids aren’t all bad news where the knitting’s concerned.)
• Four, I could ‘see’ any mistakes while they were still fixable. I could ‘read’ the lace well enough to know where I was, where I’d gone wrong, and what things should look like if I tinked. In other words, I was able – truly able – to fix mistakes, and that made me a lot more inclined to try. The one thing that scares me more than anything with ‘real’ lace and its terrifyingly interminable rows, is that when I see a mistake, I know I’m at least twice as likely to make things worse by going back as going forward. I mean, if I go forward without fixing the problem: my lace is doomed. If I go back, my lace is probably equally, if not more, doomed. This is mildly dispiriting.
• Five, the sock looked at all times like a sock. Not a dead fish; not a penguin in a blender; not any other kind of roadkill. I think this helped me not to lose faith.
• Six, all those short little rows and short little repeats? They made for visible progress, which was also quite morale-boosting.

Anyway, now I’m feeling more competent, or at least a little less incompetent. Time to get back to my flat, roadkill lace and see how it goes this time around.

With 2 little boys, summer months are always extremely busy (as are fall, winter and spring) so I try to keep my summer knitting fairly mindless, especially when we’re on the road. This trip to NH was no exception, and I’m happy to have my “mindless time” at [...]]]>

With 2 little boys, summer months are always extremely busy (as are fall, winter and spring) so I try to keep my summer knitting fairly mindless, especially when we’re on the road. This trip to NH was no exception, and I’m happy to have my “mindless time” at the end of our very busy, fun filled days!

I bought this Tilli Thomas sequined lace 3 years ago at Stitches East, determined to make something with it, for ME! I searched time and time again for a pattern that would sing to the 400 yards of sequins, but just couldn’t find one. I opted to go with the free Mystique Shawl pattern, and cut it back for a scarf. As I am knitting it, it’s beautiful….the yarn is simply scrumptious….but a little too much “bling” for me. Seems it will end up in my gift box, ready for holiday gift giving…..now instead of hunting for that perfect gift for that special someone, I’ll be searching for the perfect gift recipient for that special gift.

And at the end of this rainbow will be the Viewers’ Choice Awards  — IF we get the rest of those votes in….*

So… today we’ve got a raffle prize for Beaded Lace,

Very soon, you’ll be seeing the results for the judged contests, but first … Today’s prizes come from the last round of raffles — in the Small Lace, Gift Lace and Wee Lace.

Bette, of [...]]]> The judges have met.  The issues have been resolved, and we are pleased to start awarding more prizes!!

Very soon, you’ll be seeing the results for the judged contests, but first … Today’s prizes come from the last round of raffles — in the Small Lace, Gift Lace and Wee Lace.

Bette, of BBKnits is has offered up two skeins of 100% Merino, lace weight (called Lavish Lace).     700  yards of yumminess — in the winners’ choice of colors!  The first of these will be going to …. ShadowDancer (who tried valiantly to persuade the Random Number generator to give the prize to someone else, but eventually succumbed to the temptation of such luscious yarn).

Crystal Palace Yarns has donated  two lovely prizes:

First -  two balls/skeins of the winners’ choice of Crystal Palace’s yummy Yarns.

These two skeins will soon be wending their way to littlelena

And finally, for today anyway… a special prize from

Interweave Press has sent us a copy of

which will be wending its way to escr in part for winning the Wee Lace Raffle, and in part for coming so very close to the winners’ circle in all three of the judged categories!  If we’d had more prizes in our Prize Closet, she’d have taken one several times for her  Multinomah Shawl.

This is the same yarn I cast on for my attempt at a pooling scarf, using Knit Picks Shimmer. I got over a foot knit in length on the tubular scarf. While I was kind of fascinated with the way the pooling kept [...]]]> You may recognize the colors/yarn in this new cast on:

This is the same yarn I cast on for my attempt at a pooling scarf, using Knit Picks Shimmer. I got over a foot knit in length on the tubular scarf. While I was kind of fascinated with the way the pooling kept changing due to inconsistent color changes, I finally had to realize that 1) I didn’t really like the results,  2) I couldn’t see myself ever wearing the darn thing, and 3) I couldn’t picture anyone else wearing it either.  Since I’ve been wanting to learn entrelac, that was my next attempt. No pictures, because I never got far enough to have anything to post. The first attempt at entrelac had too may stitches in each block for this yarn – I was getting striping and didn’t like it. RIIIPPPPP! The second attempt didn’t look too bad, but was a bit too fiddly with too few stitches in each block. It was also taking more attention to keep track of the rows than I wanted to deal with. RRRIIIPPPP!

This will be my third attempt at a pattern with this yarn. I’m feeling a lot better about this one for several reasons. First, because of the dropped stitches, the yarn is pooling in interesting and pretty ways. Second, it’s a much lacier pattern, and I think the very girlish reds and pinks look good in a lacier weave. Third, I finally thought of a use for something in these colors! While I can’t see myself wearing this with a winter coat, I do love to wear reds and pinks, and this is turning out lightweight and lacy enough to be a clothing accent rather than a “keep me warm” scarf.

I did have to try casting on three times before I got a fabric result I liked. The first time was exactly as the pattern was written, using size 3 needles. I got about 25 rows into it and didn’t like the way the waves looked. I thought it was because there weren’t enough garter rows between the dropped stitches. RRRIIIPPPP! I tried again with 2 extra rows between yarnovers. Again I got about 20 rows into it and didn’t like the result. RRRIIIPPP! I decided to try the original number of rows, but using size 2 needles. I also made it narrower, with one less pattern repeat. Success! And the best part is, all of that trying and re-trying was done in bits and snippets over the course of a single evening! As you can see from the picture, I’ve gotten about 25 rows into the third attempt.

The pattern is the Drop Stitch Scarf by Christine Vogel, available as a free download on Ravelry. It took me all of about 10 seconds to memorize this pattern, which will be a nice change from the heavily charted lace I’ve been knitting lately. And each set of the 4 row pattern repeat takes very little time, so I think it will progress pretty quickly! I haven’t devided just how long I want to make it yet. Long enough to work as a sash with a pretty skirt, but not too long so I can also wear it as a scarf accessory if I want. I’m also thinking of trying this same pattern with a different yarn, but reversing the direction. Cast on the entire length of the scarf and have the waves run vertically instead of horizontally. Maybe I’ll do that with one of the other colors of Shimmer I have languishing in my stash!

We’re all curious to see!